England must be on the money as subcontinent gears up for Cricket World Cup party with all the trimmings

England’s cricketers stepped groggily off the plane at Heathrow yesterday.
What to do with their three precious days back home before they fly off to
Dhaka? A spot of golf? Some hoovering with the baby on their hip? Anything
but reflect on World Cup campaigns past.

Clean sweep: South Africa captain Hansie Cronje hit out during the 1996 Cricket World Cup game agianst Pakistan in KarachiPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

England’s history in the competition is, umm, chequered. It is not that they haven’t tried: they’ve roped in nice, round, jolly, fellows like Ian Austin – if only Samit Patel had been born 10 years earlier; tall thin grumpy chaps, one-day specialists, and Test-match-to-the-core men. There have been happy coaches, sports-jacketed managers and track-suited team directors.

Discipline has been lax, firm or non-existent. They’ve fallen off pedalos in the Caribbean, thrown up on the field in Peshawar and refused to play in Harare on moral grounds.

None of which has made much difference: despite hosting the competition three times, they’ve never won. Another game invented and lost, and a lack of success in the commercially important one-day game has cost power and influence.

That power and influence flew eastwards of course, to India.

It was in 1996 during the last World Cup to be held in Asia, that this new reality dawned. England had expected to host it, but arrived in India to face New Zealand in dusty Ahmedabad, only to discover that the game was passing them by. Cricket had become big, bold, brash, and full of incident — good and bad.

The tournament was spread over three countries – India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – and the interest and excitement amongst ordinary Indians in particular was massive.

The three Asian powerhouses made it to the quarter-finals. There were burned effigies in Lahore when Pakistan lost to India, who then forfeited their semi-final against Sri Lanka after a section of the 100,000 crowd rioted at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

Sri Lanka, with a new wheeze of pinch-hitting and a young spinner called Muttiah Muralitharan, provided a romantic climax by beating Australia in the final, where the inspirationally rotund Aravinda de Silva almost won the game on his own.

But this was not just an Asia of beatific barefoot women in saris, swarthy cricketers, overenthusiastic fans and picturesque paddy fields. It was a place of canny entrepreneurs with a firm line in negotiation. Commercialism was less of a whiff than a stench.

Everything was sponsored, right down to the chewing gum on which the players masticated, and the hosts took a massive $50 million from the tournament. No one had even considered anything that vulgar before.

Coca-Cola had paid to become the official tournament drink of choice but Pepsi responded with their own advertising campaign and Indian cities were suddenly plastered with huge cut-outs of their favoured players, mostly Sachin Tendulkar, drinking Pepsi with the slogan “Nothing official about it”.

Some of the Indian players who were sponsored by Pepsi even refused to take a drink from the Coca-Cola-sponsored drinks trolleys. References to ambush marketing in contracts soon followed.

Into this cauldron the England squad arrived under the leadership of Michael Atherton and the even more magnificently, defiantly old-fashioned Raymond Illingworth. Dogged and determined they may have been, but they were also tired and out of touch.

Illingworth was old-school in almost every way and Atherton was struggling for form. He caused uproar by calling a Pakistani journalist who was getting up his nose a buffoon (the journalist threatened to sue for damages, claiming his wife-to-be had left him because she didn’t want to be married to a buffoon) but made little other impact.

England won just two games, against the minnows. They were a black-and-white team in an iridescent tournament.

This time round none of us will be surprised by what the 10th World Cup throws up. We have already seen the dancing girls and the money. India is an economic powerhouse and the home of the Indian Premier League, which has made the country familiar not just to many of the players but to television viewers as well.

Sadly, there will be no games in Peshawar or anywhere else in Pakistan this time, but there is some compensation as Bangladesh have the honour of hosting the opening game in Dhaka.

England arrive on the back of a magnificent Ashes win, but limping and exhausted. A seven-week campaign awaits them.

While no one doubts coach Andy Flower’s powers of sorcery, to pull this one off and insert pizzazz where there has previously been a flat tyre, would be his greatest triumph yet.